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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295068">how foolish your deeds</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/batshape/pseuds/batshape'>batshape</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family Reunion, Gen, Post-War of the Ring, as supervised by the only member of the house of feanor with any sense (nerdanel obviously), canon reembodiment rules? this is my clown show and i run it as i please, frequent mention of physical scars, mentions of past physical torture, post-reembodiment, tolkien gen week day 7: free choice, tyelpe/calming pastimes, written for tolkien gen week kind of but i finished it late</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:09:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,290</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295068</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/batshape/pseuds/batshape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It took time, but he went to his grandmother first.<br/>-<br/>Celebrimbor comes to Valinor eventually. Tolkien Gen Week: Day 7</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Celebrimbor | Telperinquar &amp; Curufin | Curufinwë, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar &amp; Nerdanel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Tolkien Gen Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>how foolish your deeds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><i>Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still.</i><br/>- <i>Antigone,</i> Sophocles</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had imagined that he was ready.</p>
<p>He had envisioned the feel of a <em> hröa </em>, the weight and claustrophobic cling of flesh. He had not worn a body in an Age. (He had not felt the passage of time, either, not truly, but he had been told it was an Age. Surely, it had been an Age. Perhaps, it had not been an Age.)</p>
<p>He had imagined that he was ready, but he was not.</p>
<p><em> Who do you wish to meet? </em> the Maia of Nienna had asked, kindly, and he had said, <em> Nobody. </em> Renouncing a family was an old habit, a blade he fell onto easily, but this was not quite that. <em> Nobody. </em></p>
<p>He had imagined that he was ready, and he had worried that he was not, but when he realized the extensive truth of his incapability to understand bone and sinew enough to wear it again and not <em> fear </em>it, it was too late.</p>
<p>And thus he tried to flee, cowardly, dropping to freshly wrought knees and clutching at his face, trembling, doing his damnedest to cast his <em> fëa </em> from that sinew and that bone, and he thought again: <em> Nobody. </em></p>
<p>Estë’s Maia opened her arms, as if to welcome, or to embrace, but if he could not bear the dressing of life again he surely could not bear to be <em> held </em> by <em> another </em> , and he shook his head. He was sobbing, silently, then aloud, for he had lungs and vocal cords now and a memory of using them, and even as he wanted to peel his <em> fëa </em> from this new flesh he remembered the release of a sob and thought <em> perhaps. Escape. </em></p>
<p>“This is natural,” the Maia of Nienna spoke aloud, kindly again, and fiercely he shook his head. His new hands were scarred, callused, and he had thought it was only kinslayers who bore their old scars in reembodiment, but perhaps he had earned the punishment as well. “This is felt often.”</p>
<p>He wanted someone then, but not a servant of Nienna to weep beatifically above him while he sobbed or a servant of Estë to remind him benevolently of the <em> frequency </em>of his own feeling in others; he wanted someone warm, soft, a memory from a childhood he had shed all too quickly, centuries ago, for want of pride. </p>
<p>He wanted his mother, and he wanted his grandmother. (He wanted his father and he did not, he wanted his uncle and he did not.) He sobbed for want of being held, for want of wanting, for want of flight from this new gift of the Valar which he was not sure he deserved, not sure he had desired in the first place, when he had become comfortable in the cool and dim anonymity of the Halls.</p>
<p>It was warm here, and bright, and he was reminded terribly of too much warmth and too much brightness, of being clutched to chest and burning hot, of the hiss of fresh blood evaporating upon contact with wrong flesh—flesh he had loved and then feared and then hated and then pitied—of his skin melting from his muscle, of fat dripping from his bones—</p>
<p>“This is natural,” said Nienna’s Maia, softly. “You may take your time here, Telperinquar, if you wish.”</p>
<p>His fingers had been broken. This new body bore the mark of the instances, scarred where bone had pierced skin and gnarled where digits had bent back and back and <em> back </em> and then snapped. He felt no pain in his hands. He could not remember the previous pain of his hands.</p>
<p>
  <em> I want to go back. </em>
</p>
<p>“That is not possible,” spoke the Maiar together, and there followed the rustle of movement as they both knelt before him. Said the Maia of Estë: “You know that is not possible. Your initial agreement is important for reembodiment, Telperinquar, but we cannot revoke it once given, on a whim. We certainly cannot do so on our own.”</p>
<p>
  <em> I want to go back. </em>
</p>
<p>“But really, you do not,” rebuked Nienna’s Maia gently. They were wringing their grey hands, an unconscious ritual which compelled him in itself to grief. He wished that they would stop. “This is felt often. Very few mean it when they ask to return to the Halls.”</p>
<p>He felt no pain in his hands. Truthfully, he missed the pain of his hands.</p>
<p>“I could give it to you, Telperinquar,” offered the Maia of Estë placidly. “But you would find little pleasure in it now. Even if it had not been so long since that particular pain brought you comfort, it would not feel the same in a new <em> hröa </em>.”</p>
<p>And he snarled, “Do not speak to me of either <em> pleasure </em> or <em> comfort </em>,” unto her, and she withdrew slightly in acknowledgement of the request. He felt the gentle deference when both Maiar nodded.</p>
<p>Said the one: “Of course.” Then the shift, the freeing of precious space before him even as his <em> fëa </em> was constricted within new muscle and bone, as the Maiar stepped back. “Do you have any requests of us?”</p>
<p>“You know what I wish,” he replied through tight teeth, and the Maiar spread their hands.</p>
<p>Said the other: “And you know our inability to grant that wish.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Then leave. </em>
</p>
<p>“Of course.” They dipped their heads again, and he packed the space between his flesh and his newly-formed, well-tended nails with cool, damp Valinorean soil. The Maiar stepped backward into still air and vanished from his audience, and he laid his cheek against the dark ground and wept.</p>
<p>:</p>
<p>It took time, but he went to his grandmother first.</p>
<p>He was not the first nor only descendent of Fëanor to be granted reembodiment, for the end of the Third Age had been met with great reconsideration regarding the doomed elves of the First and the Second. </p>
<p>But he could not bear the proud company of his father or any of his father’s brothers, refused to ask them for comfort or absolution (they themselves could not give it, and he knew if they ever came to him to ask forgiveness of their own wrongs, he could not give them it either), and so he would not see them.</p>
<p>Nerdanel, however, he had not seen since childhood, though he had known her before he could walk and run, knew her as well as he knew his own mother. Nerdanel took him in quietly, and she did not entreat him to speak. Celebrimbor did not know if he ever wished to speak again, aloud or otherwise.</p>
<p>Thus they communicated in other ways: his father’s mother was gifted with great patience, and soothing hands, and when he wept at her table or in her studio and could not give voice to a reason, she held him until he stepped away. </p>
<p>And he always stepped away, quickly, with the memory of liquid fire in his veins, of flame catching in his hair, and he always regretted allowing himself to be touched. But she never mentioned the twist to his mouth when this regret came. She never asked him to speak.</p>
<p>He occupied himself with flowers now, for she thought them beautiful but had no talent for their care, and he drank much strong-brewed tea, for she made cups frequently and left them to cool around the house. (It was a tactic he remembered, for his uncle had done it for his father in Beleriand, when Curufin neglected to eat or drink in pursuit of some new project, and any gentle encouragements to keep himself alive avoided indignance only when they came in the form of cooling teacups left on desks, never to be acknowledged with words). And he tried to keep himself from aimless wandering—for when he wandered he ended always at some new Noldorin forge, and the twitching in his fingers kept half-time with the racing beat of his heart.</p>
<p>Yet he wandered still, and always did it make him want. When he lay on his back beside the flowers in a pinkening dusk and closed his eyes, allowing his fidgeting hands to drift in imagined shapes above him, Nerdanel met him there. </p>
<p>She said, “If you want to create again, there are mediums beyond metal to do so.”</p>
<p>Surprise may have warmed his face, and embarrassment may have prompted him to reply. He said, “I have no talent for marble,” quietly, and his father’s mother laughed.</p>
<p>“It is not always about talent, Tyelpë,” she replied, and she sat beside him easily. “And I did not mean marble.”</p>
<p>He did not ask then what she had meant, did not speak further, but his hands settled onto his chest and perhaps, perhaps, he nodded very gently.</p>
<p>Clay was what she had meant, and Celebrimbor discovered this the next morning when she took him cheerfully by the hand to her studio and set before him a small mass of grey which she had cut from a block with wire. </p>
<p>And she spoke: “My husband had no talent for clay, and neither did my children. But Tyelkormo liked it when he was young, mostly for the mess, and when he returned, we revisited it.” His own hands were flat and still on the table surface, and she lifted them gently and placed them atop the cool clay. He did not flinch. “It was good for him.”</p>
<p>He did not know if he cared what was good for his uncles, did not know if he wished to engage in the same arts, even if none of them were any talent at them—but he could hardly tell their mother such, in the light of this kindness. Instead, he closed his eyes.</p>
<p>Nerdanel left him there then, and she returned only twice in the day to leave cups of tea quietly beside his place, and she smiled at the clay drying in flakes on his face, smeared against his cheek where he had rested a contemplative hand and over the slope of his brow where he had scrubbed irritably at his face. And she said nothing of it when, come evening, Celebrimbor slowly and with unflinching concentration flattened the clumsily molded clay with the heels of his palms and stood.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he said, and Nerdanel nodded, and that was all.</p>
<p>:</p>
<p>Curufin visited, occasionally at first and then frequently, and in the light of this unpleasant development Nerdanel always made it possible for Celebrimbor to remove himself from the house before his father arrived.</p>
<p>(<em>He tells me</em>, she had said, when Celebrimbor had passed her in the house and she had tilted her head vaguely and he had tilted his head back in amusement, and then in question. <em> He keeps his mind open to me now, like he hadn’t before, and he tells me when he is coming. </em>)</p>
<p>Celebrimbor did not care whether Curufin told Nerdanel when he was paying a visit. Celebrimbor did not wonder whether this was for his own benefit or not.</p>
<p>Celebrimbor had no talent for not caring. Likewise, Celebrimbor had no talent for not wondering.</p>
<p>He knew this, and yet he pretended that he possessed abundances of both when his grandmother paused in her studio—he had been watching her work, at first, and then he had closed his eyes and only listened—and Nerdanel said, “He wants to see you.”</p>
<p>Celebrimbor kept his eyes closed. He did not frown.</p>
<p>
  <em> I do not care if he does. </em>
</p>
<p>“I understand that.” Nerdanel hummed. “But do you not want to also see him?”</p>
<p>
  <em> I see him often enough in looking glasses. </em>
</p>
<p>His grandmother snorted. “That is dramatic of you, Tyelpë. You do not look so alike.”</p>
<p><em> Don’t we? </em> He frowned, deeply now. <em> Then I fear my memory has— </em></p>
<p>“Your memory is good, Tyelpë.” Nerdanel sounded as if she was smiling. “But there is a fundamental difference in the ways you carry yourselves, which sets you apart.”</p>
<p>
  <em> He is proud. </em>
</p>
<p>“And so are you.” At his resulting grimace, Nerdanel laughed. “It is only that yours is a different kind of pride. It sits in your chest, rather than your shoulders.”</p>
<p>
  <em> I think he has rather too much of it to sit only in his shoulders— </em>
</p>
<p>“It is also about expression. And you are making a very Atarinkë-like expression now, Telperinquar.”</p>
<p>He corrected his scowl. Said, <em> I am not ready to see him </em>, and Nerdanel again hummed.</p>
<p>“Then he can wait.”</p>
<p>He felt mute surprise at this, and he knew when his father’s mother smiled softly. Sadly.</p>
<p>“I will not coax you into a meeting with him for my own sake, Tyelpë. Your days are your own, and your life is your own, and your forgiveness is your own. I know all of that.”</p>
<p>
  <em> I am sorry— </em>
</p>
<p>“Please do not apologize.” She sounded mournful now. He could not open his eyes. “You should not apologize for that.”</p>
<p>He wanted to say <em> I am sorry </em>again, and he thought she knew it. He opened his eyes. He did not speak.</p>
<p>Curufin came again the next day, and the day after that, and many days following, and though Celebrimbor did not linger in the house he did not wander as far either. On the third day he returned early to Nerdanel’s door, and he sat on the step even as he heard voices rising from within. The arc of gentle laughter, belonging to Nerdanel, and the sound of clayware moved about a table. Celebrimbor waited.</p>
<p>He could not remember the pain of his hands. He wondered if Estë had taken the memory, and he wondered if he minded.</p>
<p>He did mind, he thought. The pain was <em> his </em> —pleasant or not, bearable or not. He had clung to it, made it a part of him until he was more pain than body, and clutching that singular less terrible thing within his <em> fëa </em> had made the more terrible of it all withstandable. He had borne so much, focused on the crushing of his wrists and the ruining of his fingers, the thought that <em> at least he would not create again </em> , and occasionally <em> he </em> had been able to laugh. </p>
<p>The fire had burned brighter then.</p>
<p>Celebrimbor had not laughed at the end. Torn from his <em> hröa </em> then, he had not had wrists or fingers on which to focus. He had felt it all. Heard it all. He had been screaming, and he had not noticed until he had been dead.</p>
<p>“Telperinquar.”</p>
<p>And he did not start, mostly, and did not cry out, mostly, and he only opened his eyes.</p>
<p>His father stood before him, past the step, for he had surely been meaning to leave, and Celebrimbor had never seen his father with the scars he bore now. Curufin’s face was marked in two places: once from the edge of his high left cheekbone across the swell of his lower lip, and again, deeply and wickedly, in the soft space beneath his right eye. Evidently, his throat had been cut, for this was marked too, but it was a paler line, and the gold embroidery of his collar drew attention from it in a way Celebrimbor thought was intentional.</p>
<p>Kinslayers kept their scars in reembodiment.</p>
<p>He wondered if this bothered Curufin. He wondered if it was unjust to suspect that it did not.</p>
<p>And he did not answer the address, did nothing but tilt his head backward to look him in the eye, and evidently Curufin had been meaning to speak, but he faltered now. Discomfort was a foreign expression on his father’s face, and if Celebrimbor were crueller he might have relished it. Discomfort made him look very young—or perhaps it was sunlight which did that.</p>
<p>And he recognized his own eyes, looked upon his own mouth, though the curl of Celebrimbor’s hair was greater, and Curufin was nearly a head shorter, and his father’s hands were whole, and unmarred. Celebrimbor’s eyes fell upon the line of Curufin’s shoulders, and it was indeed proud.</p>
<p>“I have wanted to see you,” Curufin said quietly, and Celebrimbor nodded once, shortly. He did not speak.</p>
<p>But Curufin made as if to step forward then, and this was closeness which he could not abide, and Celebrimbor had risen to his feet before either of them realized it. Curufin paused. Celebrimbor closed his eyes.</p>
<p>“Tyelpë,” said Curufin, very quietly. “I am sorry.”</p>
<p>Tersely, another nod. Not acceptance, but acknowledgement. He had known this is how it would transpire.</p>
<p>“I should have been there,” said Curufin quietly. “I am sorry.”</p>
<p>But this was not what Celebrimbor had expected, not what he had told himself would come to pass—for Celebrimbor had thought he would speak of insurrection in the halls of Felagund, or the foolish cruelty that had gotten Curufin killed, or of any manner of transgressions which his father had committed against others which Celebrimbor has not. He had not expected an apology for what had become of <em> him.  </em></p>
<p>The surprise of it all nearly made him speak.</p>
<p>
  <em> Please— </em>
</p>
<p>But Celebrimbor did not speak. He met his father’s eyes silently.</p>
<p>“I should leave,” said Curufin. It sounded as if it pained him to say it once again, though Celebrimbor was not sure he would remember that he had said it once before. <em> I should leave.  </em></p>
<p><em> I should leave. </em> With chairs overturned and bottles tipped between them (most of them, if not all, turned and tipped by Celebrimbor’s hands, for he was <em> angry, </em> he had been so <em> angry </em> ), with Celegorm pacing too quickly in the hall, with hosts gathered and eager for a fight of any kind, Curufin had said: <em> I should leave. </em></p>
<p>And Celebrimbor had said: <em> Yes. </em></p>
<p>Briefly, Celebrimbor thought he could remember the pain of his hands. He spread his fingers.</p>
<p>“Please do not leave<em>.</em>”</p>
<p>They were quiet words, but words all the same, and both of their gazes dropped to his scarred knuckles as he said them. Curufin’s hand drifted to his own throat. </p>
<p>(Kinslayers kept their scars in reembodiment.)</p>
<p>But that was not right, was it? That was not correct. Celebrimbor had been told of a choice given to them all, had been asked himself if he wished to keep them, and he had answered <em> yes. </em>That was right.</p>
<p>“Tyelpë,” said Curufin, quietly. <em> I should have been there </em>hung yet in the balance between them. “I am sorry.”</p>
<p>Celebrimbor sat again on the step. He tipped his head silently at the space beside him. </p>
<p>He thought of cooling cups of strong-brewed tea. He thought of clay, and of kept scars, and of the Noldorin forge to which his wandering had most frequently brought him. He thought of Nerdanel promising him over a dusty workplace about his uncle: <em> It was good for him. </em></p>
<p>Tentatively, Curufin took the space beside him.</p>
<p>Celebrimbor did not have much of a mind for speaking anymore. He reckoned that his father knew it, for the sole reason that Celebrimbor sat on the step in silence, and it was a silence which Curufin did not break for a long while. Again, Celebrimbor closed his eyes.</p>
<p>Sometime in the silence, the door to Nerdanel’s home opened, and closed, and in the time between, two cups of strongly-brewed tea were placed on the stone behind them. Curufin made a minute sound of amusement, and when he passed Celebrimbor his cup, Celebrimbor allowed for a brief moment of contact between their fingers.</p>
<p>And it was not forgiveness, because beyond his own injury Celebrimbor was not one of those who could give it, and it was not an apology, for Celebrimbor was still proud enough that he would not offer it, but Curufin dipped his head silently, and it was gratitude.</p>
<p>And, for the time, it was enough.</p>
<p>The day waned, and the sky turned pink before them. When Curufin spoke at last, it was to comment, quietly and appreciatively, on the flowers.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>while i definitely don't think the Valar are infallible (lol), i do think Nienna and Este, out of everybody, tend to know what they're doing most often. they generally did well by Tyelpe in the Halls, to the extent that they could do well while he was alone and bodiless and reeling from the circumstances of his death.</p>
<p>i'm also firmly in the camp that Celebrimbor and Curufin had a healthy, loving father-son relationship right up until Nargothrond, and even then, the situation of their parting was complicated by the fact that both of them still cared for one another very much. certainly, there are problems that remain between them, but they're definitely not resulting from some lifelong cruelty on Curufin's part. i think they deserved to meet again.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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